Visa has announced a strategic partnership with crypto infrastructure firm Aquanow to expand its stablecoin settlement capabilities across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA). Godfrey Sullivan, Visa’s head of product and solutions for the region, confirmed that this initiative will allow financial institutions to settle transactions using approved stablecoins like USDC, significantly reducing operational friction and waiting times.
The collaboration integrates Aquanow’s digital asset infrastructure directly with Visa’s technology, facilitating faster and cheaper cross-border payments. According to the official announcement, this modernization responds to growing demand from banks and payment processors for solutions that operate 24 hours a day. Thus, entities will be able to manage money flows much more efficiently and transparently, overcoming the limitations of traditional banking systems.
Is this the end of traditional banking intermediaries in global payments?
This move is a decisive step to digitize the “back-end” of global money movement. By adopting digital assets, Visa seeks to eliminate the multiple layers of intermediaries that often make international transfers expensive and slow. On the other hand, the initiative aligns with previous pilot tests from 2023, where the payment network had already begun experimenting with USDC, demonstrating that blockchain technology is viable for large-scale and high-frequency financial operations.
The relevance of this event lies in the institutional validation of cryptocurrencies as settlement tools and not just speculative assets. Furthermore, by focusing on the CEMEA region, Visa serves markets where the efficiency of cross-border payments is critical for economic development. Therefore, this alliance not only optimizes processes but also democratizes access to advanced financial services for various companies and neobanks in emerging markets.
The integration of stablecoins into conventional payment rails could pressure traditional banking to modernize its own infrastructures or risk losing market share. If the efficiency promised by Visa and Aquanow materializes, we are likely to see an accelerated migration towards these new settlement standards. Likewise, this could incentivize greater regulatory clarity in the jurisdictions involved, as governments recognize the practical utility of these assets.
